Posts Tagged ‘museums’

If you’re in the mood for acting out your inner Godzilla, towering high above the city looking down at all of New York’s grand yet tiny buildings below, perhaps you should take a trip over to see the Queens Museum of Art crowning exhibit: The Panorama of the City of New York.

Miniature Replica of NYC at Queens Museum of Art

Built by Robert Moses for the 1964 World’s Fair to celebrate the City’s sheer architectural prowess, this 9,335 square foot model includes every single building constructed before 1992 in all five boroughs; giving it a total of 895,000 individual structures.

The Panorama required a team of 100 people working for 3 years to complete. Staff used references including aerial photographs and insurance maps ensuring accuracy of less than one percent margin of error between reality and the model. In 2005 about 60,000 structures were changed to bring the cityscape up-to-date. You’ll have prime viewing from the walkways high above the endless metropolis without having to scale a skyscraper….with a screaming lady in your hand.

Outside the museum, you’ll be in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, a shrine in and of itself to the original site of the 1964 World’s Fair. A gigantic 12 story tall metal unisphere is mounted in a large fountain giving it the appearance of floating in space. Designed to depict global interdependence, it was dedicated as “Man’s Achievements on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe.” A truely fitting outdoor accompaniment to the Panorama exhibit.

By subway: Take the 7 line from Grand Central to the Willets Point/Shea Stadium Station and follow the signs on a ten-minute walk through the park to the museum.

Recent Articles in this category

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